us, but it had been extinguished. Impatient
monks had denounced the king from the pulpits, and disloyal language had
been reported from other quarters, which had roused vigilance, but had
not created alarm. The Nun of Kent had forced herself into the royal
presence with menacing prophecies; but she had appeared to be a harmless
dreamer, who could only be made of importance by punishment. The surface
of the nation was in profound repose. Cromwell, like Walsingham after
him, may perhaps have known of the fire which was smouldering below, and
have watched it silently till the moment came at which to trample it
out; but no symptom of uneasiness appears either in the conduct of the
government or in the official correspondence. The organization of the
friars, the secret communication of the Nun with Catherine and the
Princess Mary, with the papal nuncio, or with noble lords and reverend
bishops, was either unknown, or the character of those communications
was not suspected. That a serious political conspiracy should have
shaped itself round the ravings of a seeming lunatic, to all appearance
had not occurred as a possibility to a single member of the council,
except to those whose silence was ensured by their complicity.

[Sidenote: The first occasion of suspicion.]

So far as we are able to trace the story (for the links of the chain
which led to the discovery of the designs which were entertained, are
something imperfect), the suspicions of the government were first roused
in the following manner:

[Sidenote: On the birth of Elizabeth, the Princess Mary is called upon
to surrender her title.]

Queen Catherine, as we have already seen, had been called upon, at the
coronation of Anne Boleyn, to renounce her title, and she had refused.
Mary had been similarly deprived of her rank as princess; but either her
disgrace was held to be involved in that of her mother, or some other
cause, perhaps the absence of immediate necessity, had postponed the
demand for her own personal submission. As, however, on the publication
of the second marriage, it had been urged on Catherine that there could
not be two queens in England, so on the birth of the Princess Elizabeth,
an analogous argument required the disinheritance of Mary. It was a hard
thing; but her mother's conduct obliged the king to be peremptory. She
might have been legitimatized by act of parliament, if Catherine would
have submitted. The consequences of Catherine's refusal m